Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Cats and Dogs... Wet Cats and Dogs

By PaulyLos Angeles, CA

I'm not used to lots of rain in Southern California at this time of year. Sure, in January and February, it's the winter season which means temps might dip below 60 degrees with more rain than usual. But all of that rain arrived in December, a little earlier than expected. Every since I returned from Las Vegas, it's been raining non-stop with perpetual grey skies. Man, fo a moment I got flashbacks from living in Seattle, but the thing about Seattle is that it might sprinkle on and off during the day with a fine mist that never seems to go away. It doesn't rain hard, like those heavy downpours with sheets and sheets of rain falling faster than you can imagine. That's the type of rain I was used to in New York, or as the elderly generation would put it, "It's raining cats and dogs."

So it was a bit disturbing when the skies opened up and never stopped. Cats and dogs are an understatement. Part of the reason I ultimately sucked it up and moved to LA was because of the weather at this time of year. I've been watching football games and that's my only outlet to the frigid weather in the Midwest and Northeast. Sure, I have to head back home for ten days around Christmas, but I'm trying not to think about those freezing temperatures and wintry mixes that make walking around outside utterly miserable.

I don't mind the grey skies because it makes me hunker down and write better.Sometimes, when it's too sunny outside, that can be distracting and I get the urge to step outside and soak up the sun. That's when I pop my head out and get greeted by pollution and/or chemtrails that have been zigzagging over the skies of SoCal. I always wondered what those planes were spraying. I've been told by my friends who are hardcore conspiracy nuts that the chemtrails either fall under one of two categories: weather manipulation and/or poisoning the masses. Sweet Jesus, that can't be true. Or can it?

Who knows for sure. But I never noticed chemtrails over Los Angeles until a few months after Obama got elected and all of those Obama/Joker posters began popping up all over LA. Someone was hired to tear them down, but more would pop up over night. And then -- that's when the white lines appeared in the azure-tinted skies. Zig zag patterns. Xs above the slums of Beverly Hills. If I woke up early enough, I could see them hard at work. By the time most of the locals woke up and began their commutes, the trails dissipated into what looked like an ordinary layer of Los Angeles smog.

I didn't think anything of it until I noticed that the Las Vegas valley was being sprayed as well. I have no idea what is going on. One of my friends who is an engineer suggested that we create a weather balloon to fly up into the atmosphere to test what odd chemicals are up there. Sounds good in theory, but something like that can get Men in Black showing up at your door and carting you off to a re-education camp with a slew of American Talibans.

See, the grey skies and rain makes me think about strange things. I'm sorta bummed out at the rainy weather because it would have been nice to enjoy the warmth of SoCal before my trip back home for Christmas. Even though I have been looking at the weather report for NYC, the 20 lows/32 highs is not terribly bad, but for someone who had their blood thinned the last few years, even moderate winter temperatures are going to take a while to get used to.

In the past week, I have been frantically finishing up freelance work for the rest of the year, in addition to trying to pound out a couple of advanced assignments so I have a smaller workload on my plate when I fly back to LA in early January. I was in a rut last week -- an unmotivated rut -- and I cite full blame on the pharmies.

Painkillers kill my motivation and I only have a small window where I can function in a creative manner before the warm fuzzies win the battle and I get sucked into the couch. I don't necessarily numb the senses with the boob tube, but I sorta lose motivation to cross off the items on my "To Do List" and decide that procrastination is the better route to happiness. The opposite occurs when I'm jacked up on Adderall because all I want to do is work. Even when I finish every task on my To Do List, all I want to do is start writing new lists! Talk about complete polar opposites, because in one corner the painkillers suck me into the couch and in the other corner, I can't sit still with Addys pumping through my system.

Meanwhile, during my faded phases, I have been reading the last pile of books for 2010 (and eager to start a new pile in January). I have also been catching up on a backlog of financial articles on the web and offering up tutorials to Nicky about complex financial matters. I discovered that she understands the financial meltdown if I use poker/gambling terms or find appropriate Hollywood analogies. She's a fast learner. Just the other day she deadpanned, Wow, so Wall Street is just like gambling?" Well, no duh. And more hauntingly, she said, "And this financial game is fucking rigged?" Finally, she's finally catching on.

Over the weekend, when I was not sweating random sportsbets, I finally watched a dozen or so documentary films (both on the financial system and aliens) that various friends recommended. I'd say that 50% of it was a crock of shit, while 25% is debatable, but it's that last 25% that freaks me the fuck out!

I need it to start being sunny again, so I can focus on non-distracting work.